


Courage in the Wind

by lameafpun



Category: Coraline (2009)
Genre: Gen, The Worst Ending, but would recommend, pocket universe, srsly coraline theories are super dark, watching youtube videos started this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:33:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lameafpun/pseuds/lameafpun
Summary: In the end, the trials hadn't mattered.She had already won.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	Courage in the Wind

Her eyes itched. It was a trailing itch, one that started in the corners of her eyes and slowly worked up her top lid and over to her tear ducts and she would scratch and scratch and scratch — until her lids were puffy and half her lashes had fallen out. 

She had lugged cleaning supplies out from the hallway closet, set on eliminating every mote of dust that ever dared to drift into existence in the Pink Palace’s walls. Mom and dad were out shopping. No one was around to interrupt. 

(Hadn’t they just gone shopping yesterday?) 

Coraline sighed, surveying the apartment from the top of the stairs. Drab and gray as it always was. For some reason she’d never been trusted to decorate. Well, she supposed cleaning could be her own version of redecorating. 

Windex in hand and face mask in place, Coraline cleans. 

(In the corner of her eye the plaster starts to curl. The wallpaper peels. Color leeches out of the furniture and the lights begin to flicker. She sees her reflection in the window and there’s something wrong with her eyes . . . 

Something familiar and uneasy settles in her gut when she turns to look and it’s all back in its place. The web has been repaired.)

A creak of a door opening, the rustle of plastic and the scent of rain that floods the kitchen.   
Coraline turns with an uncharacteristically cheerful smile from where she’d been standing at the fridge, cleaner in one hand and rags in the other. Cartons of leftovers and fruit of a debatable quality have been dumped onto the counters to join a few spotty bananas. Privately, Coraline finds it amazing that the flies haven’t swarmed it yet. 

Something in her chest loosens in her parent’s presence — an aftereffect of her clashes with the Beldam. Another little reminder. 

“Hey mom. Dad.” 

“Doing a little cleaning, Coraline?” Her dad asks, tweaking her nose as he goes past. As she expects he turns the corner to his office, already set on spending the afternoon working on the catalogue. His coat, laden with snow, is hung on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. 

“Ye — hey, you tracked mud in! Dad!” He may as well have vanished, and Coraline groans. Dirty snow slush is already melting around his boots — where she’d just mopped!

She twitches. She hated when the house got dirty. All her work . . . 

The tap-tap-tap-tap of fingernails against the counter draws Coraline’s attention and she’s looking up at her mother sheepishly. 

“Sorry, I’ll get the groceries in a second. Just gotta finish with the fridge first.” 

Her mother smiles at that. “Such a good girl, Coraline.” 

Coraline sees the flash of pitch black where dark brown should be, threads of string, in the shiny reflection of the fridge. 

A skinny, cat-eared shadow looms in her room. She doesn’t open the window, even as she feels its gaze on her. Heavy. 

The groceries are in the fridge. 

She doesn’t think it matters. 

Her eyes _itch_.


End file.
